I’m hoping someone could give me some information. I was put in for TS SCI w/ FSP for a Fort Meade customer on March 1st. (I work for a contractor). Been over 3 months and I haven’t heard anything. How is Covid-19 affecting clearances for IC (I feel most people ask about DoD). Are they doing polys now? And do their investigations go through DCSA?
Thanks!
Unless there’s a different IC office on Fort Meade, your ‘customer’ is still under the DOD.
Everyone is in the same boat and questions about screenings and polys have already been asked numerous times here. Everything is on hold. Some were told to scan their paperwork for virtual screenings. If you weren’t told that, then I imagine your clearance isn’t a ‘priority’ one. Even most non-contract IC applicants aren’t even being on boarded.
Covid aside, three months isn’t a long time to be waiting for any step for a TS.
Sadly an always overheated system since 1989…remains so. The enormous push to add investigators cleared the backlog there…but pushed the golf ball down the hose to adjudication. Covid affected offices in different ways. Some declared their people critical…others not. I certainly would have wanted my adjudicators working around the clock.I think they opted for option B and reduced capacity across the board. That said I noticed a distinct slow down dating to late spring of last year. Our packages were submitted and initiated within 60 days. After about April, I would not see an initiation and call. They would say yeah, sitting in the rack…awaiting funding…or assignment…that isn’t initiated. They were blowing smoke up the line. I was seeing waits of well over 6 months just to initiate. Our TS clearances were almost always within 2 weeks of 18 months. As I left my position I had many over 24 months. Their pay depended on getting the higher clearance and it did a huge disservice to these otherwise sharp employees.